Colorado College has an impressive number of alumni and faculty authors (as evidenced by the wait for publication in “On the Bookshelf”!) Readers, now there’s news of a virtual book club for CC on Goodreads.

The first featured book will be the debut novel by Kathy Giuffre, professor of sociology, whose work “The Drunken Spelunker’s Guide to Plato” was recently honored with the Seven Sisters Book Award in the fiction/mainstream category for 2016. Set in a dive bar in the South, the book gives life to an array of oddball characters. It has been described as the philosophy of Plato, quenched with Pabst Blue Ribbon. The result is “a lovely story of community and friendship,” says Lynne Hinton, president of the Seven Sisters Book Awards.

Published by John F. Blair Publishers in 2015, the book has received numerous awards, including a SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) Okra Award for Best Books of Summer 2015. It went on to make the long list for the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize for literary fiction, an award that pays tribute to one of the South’s most beloved authors, and it was a finalist for the IndieFab Book of the Year. Additionally, “The Drunken Spelunker’s Guide to Plato” was one of nine books, culled from a field of 47, to make the long list for the Crook’s Corner book prize. For the virtual book club, Giuffre will lead interested readers through an online discussion of her book.